Mummified Incan teen drank, did drugs

Girl, who was sacrificed, may have been sedated by alcohol, coca leaves

CHILD SACRIFICE The mummified teenager known as the Maiden ingested copious amounts of alcohol and chewed coca leaves in the weeks before her death in an Incan sacrifice ritual, a new analysis of her tightly braided hair finds.

Johan Reinhard

In the month before her death as a sacrifice to Incan gods, a teenage girl drank heavily and chewed coca leaves, according to a new analysis of her mummified remains. The discovery suggests that the girl, known as the Maiden, was heavily sedated or perhaps already dead when she was entombed around 500 years ago in a shrine atop the Llullaillaco volcano on the border between Argentina and Chile. Her death was probably part of the sacrifice ritual called capacocha.

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